Privacy Policy

In this article

Welcome

Welcome

As a communications provider, using personal information is fundamental to what we do – from connecting calls to developing and promoting our services. We believe that it is very important that our customers trust us with their personal information. 

This privacy notice explains what personal information we collect about you and how we use it during our relationship with you. You can also find details of what rights you have (including the right to object to some of the data handling we carry out), as well as how to exercise those rights in the Your Rights section below.

Technology is a fast-changing area and can be complicated. We’ve included a glossary which explains the meaning of any technical terms we use. 

In a nutshell

We’ve also created a short version of the entire policy, so you can get all the facts at a glance.

Your Rights

Your Rights

You can ask us to provide you with a copy of your personal data at any time. If you have given us your personal information because you have a contract with us or because you have consented to us handling it, you are entitled to ask us for a copy of this information in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format so that you can reuse it or share it with other organisations.

In some circumstances (including where we rely on ‘legitimate interests’), you have the right to object to our processing of your data and can ask us to restrict our use of your data and to delete it.  You also have the right to ask us to correct your information if it’s inaccurate and, as described below, to object to automated decision making.  

We aim to provide our products and services in a way that protects information and respects your request. Because of this, when you delete or change (or ask us to delete or change) your information from our systems, we might not do so straight away from our back-up systems or copies on our active servers. And we may need to keep some information to fulfil your request (for example, keeping your email address to make sure it’s not on our marketing list).

Where we can, we’ll confirm any changes. For example, we’ll check a change of address against the Postal Address File, or we might ask you to confirm it.

There are some exceptions to these rights, for example we might not be able to delete your data if we need it to fulfil your contract or we are required to keep it by law. We also might not be able to provide you with information if it would infringe someone else’s rights. We’ll always try to help you with your request and if we believe we are unable to fulfil your request we will always explain why.  

Where you have given consent for us to handle your personal information or permission to provide a service, you can change your mind and withdraw this consent at any time. It only applies to how we use your personal information in the future, not what we’ve done in the past (for example if we’ve run a credit check at the start of your contract).

Children

Children

We only enter into contracts with customers who are over the age of 18. Although the account holder will always be an adult, we recognise that some of our products and services, like mobile devices, will be purchased on behalf of children and so we cannot guarantee that every mobile number or service is held by an adult.

Where you have purchased a product or service on behalf of a child we will collect and use the child’s data as part of providing our services to the end user in line with this privacy notice. We have developed safety features for devices that belong to a child as well as educational material to help keep your child safe online. You can find more information on these features here and some guidance to help you stay safe online here.

Information we collect about you and how we use it

Information we collect about you and how we use it

The personal information we collect, store and use will depend on the products and services you have with us and how you use them. In most cases we have this information because we collect it directly from you, or because it has been derived from your use of our products and services. In some circumstances we will obtain this information from a third party.

Some of the personal information we collect, store and use is considered more sensitive (for example data about health or biometric data).  We will only collect, store and use this more sensitive information to support you and your use of our products and services, and only where we put additional measures in place to protect this personal information.

Below you can find details of how and why we use your information and our permitted reason in law (known as ‘legal basis’) to use it. For some products and services, we handle additional information. You can find specific details by looking at the section for the product or service you’ve bought and see an overview in the ways in which we collect and use your personal information during our relationship.

Specific products and services

Specific products and services

Sharing your information

Sharing your information

Automated decision making and profiling

Automated decision making and profiling

We want to make sure decisions we make about you such as credit approval or which product or service to offer you are quick, fair and correct based on what we know about you. We use technology to make decisions automatically and to build profiles about you. This technology uses logic that analyses your preferences and how you use our products and services, which helps us to improve your customer experience, making it more relevant for you and allowing you to get the most out of our products and services. This means you’ll regularly receive from us personalised content whether in our marketing emails or when you browse our app or website or watch TV.

We also use technology to make decisions automatically based on your credit score analysis, which allows us to guarantee your regular payments for our products and services. This means we’ll decide your eligibility for our products and services based on your credit history.

You have the right to object to our use of automated decision making in some circumstances. Please remember that if you object to certain types of automated decision making, it may affect our ability to provide you with the optimum level of customer service and our ability to provide you with certain products, financing and services. 

Please see Your Rights section above for more information on how to object.


Protecting your information and how long we keep it

Protecting your information and how long we keep it

How to contact us and further details

How to contact us and further details

If you are unhappy about how we have handled your personal information you can make a complaint to our data protection officer here who will investigate the matter and report back to you. 

If you are still not satisfied after our response or believe we are not using your personal information in line with the law, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner, the regulator in the UK. You can find details of how to contact them on their website at https://ico.org.uk/.

If you’d like any more details, or you have comments or questions about our privacy notice, contact us here or write to us at: 

Data Privacy Team

Pp Floor 16

1 Braham Street

London E1 8EE

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Glossary

Glossary

We have included a description of how the technical terms we use are generally interpreted:

  • Account Holder means the individual(s) we have entered into an agreement for the product or service with.
  • Additional needs refers to any information in relation to an adjustment that may need to be made in order for us to appropriately support you. You can find more information about what we mean by additional needs and on how we support customers here.
  • Aggregated data means grouped information, for example the total number of calls made in a month or total number of minutes called.
  • Anonymised data means data which has had all personally identifiable information removed. 
  • Apps means an application, such as one you’ve downloaded to your mobile or portable device.
  • BT means British Telecommunications Plc.
  • Binding corporate rules are designed to allow multinational companies to transfer personal information from the European Economic Area (EEA) to their affiliates outside of the EEA and to keep to data-protection legislation.
  • Browser records means the types and nature of websites that you visit, as well as the date, time, length of your internet session, cell site and network used, device information, your data usage and your IP address.
  • Call records means the date, time, length and cost of your communications, device information, the location the call was made to and from, the network used and the type of communication, including when you make calls abroad. 
  • Cell site means the place where we keep the antennae and communications equipment we use to create a cellular network over which we transmit communications.
  • Content means any part of a communication which shares the meaning of the communication.  This could be the title of an email, the content of a text message or a recording of a voicemail.
  • Cookies are small text files (up to 4KB) created by a website and stored in the user's connected device – either temporarily for that session only or permanently on the hard disk (called a persistent cookie). Cookies help the website recognise you and keep track of your preferences.
  • Data usage means the volume of data you’ve used or what’s included under your service agreement with us.  This can be a download or upload volume.
  • Device information means the MAC address, MSISDN, IMEI, IMSI and advertising identifiers for your device. Device information also means the hardware manufacturer, model and operating system version for the device.
  • EE means EE Limited.
  • Encryption means scrambling information into an unreadable form that can only be translated back using a special key.
  • IMEI (international mobile equipment identity) is a unique number given to every single mobile-phone
    handset.
  • IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) a unique number identifying a mobile subscriber.
  • IP address is a unique string of numbers that identifies each device using the internet or a local network.
  • MAC address (media access control address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network connection made to a device.
  • MSISDN (mobile station international subscriber directory number) means a mobile phone number that uniquely identifies a service subscription.
  • MVNO means Mobile Virtual Network Operator Partners; communications providers that use our network.
  • Personal information means information that identifies you as an individual, or is capable of doing so.
  • Postal Address File means the Royal Mail address database, containing over 30 million UK postal addresses.
  • Power of attorney refers to the option to choose a trusted friend or relative (or more than one if you want) to act on your behalf. The person you appoint, called an 'attorney', can then use your money to pay bills, sell assets on your behalf and make gifts. In the UK an ‘attorney’ must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian to be valid.
  • Regulatory obligations means our obligations to regulators such as Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
  • TV records means details of the devices you use (including the device information such as MAC address or IMSI), the channels, programmes and adverts you watch on them, the services you access, how long you watch and what actions you take when doing so, including how you view, record and fast-forward programmes.
  • Tags are an instruction inserted on a website that specifies how the site, or a part of the site, should be formatted and how it’s performing. 
  • We and our mean either British Telecommunications plc or EE Limited.
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